October 23, 2017
Hello!!
 |
| Best comp 💕💕 |
It's been another fantastic week doing the Lord’s work! Ups and downs as
always, but the ups always, always, always outweigh the downs.
Last night
transfer calls came in and I am STAYING in Desert Ridge with Sister Utsch!!!!!!!
We were screaming we were SO EXCITED!! This will make Desert Ridge my longest
area thus far hahaha. Both of our zone leaders are also staying and this will
be their third transfer together as well so the four of us are really excited
to have another transfer in the forgotten promised land of Desert Ridge.
 |
| Desert Ridge - best zone in the mission |
We saw some awesome miracles this week.
Last Monday
as we were planning for our day we both felt like we needed to be in one of our
wards, but then every name we planned for was from a different ward!! We were
both like man what is going on here?? But we went with it and it ended up being
one of the best proselyting nights of my mission. We talked to three people but
all three of them were genuine seekers of truth and wanted to learn more! One
of them was a man named J. We talked to him and his kids in the park and he
mentioned that he's been studying religion for a few years and is now a
preacher in his church. He invited us to doubt our faith, to which we invited
him to doubt his doubts. The longer we talked to him the more open he got, and
we eventually became friends on Facebook and are planning on having dinner with
him sometime next week (TBD) to talk more about faith and what it is! Not gonna
lie, I’m a little bit nervous he'll try to bash us, but he's a genuine seeker
of truth so I don't have a problem with answering his questions. The second
person we talked to was a massive miracle. A few weeks ago a member in one of
our wards brought a neighbor to a ward party, and he had a great time so we
tried visiting his house afterwards but the people we talked to there said that
they were not interested. We were pretty bummed. Well, as we were biking along
on
Monday
night we ran into a man smoking a cigar at the bottom of his driveway. It was
the man who came to the party! Turns out the member had the address wrong the
whole time. We talked to him for a LONG time. He told us about the various
trials he's encountered in his life recently and we testified that the gospel
can provide healing and support. He wouldn't commit to a return appointment but
here again; he is an honest seeker of truth, on a search he is not even aware
he is on yet! The third was an accident. We went to visit a name on the ward
list we didn't know and found out that the family that used to live there had
moved. We met a girl in her 20s and talked with her super briefly. Her faith in
Jesus Christ is everything to her! She invited us to come back and now we are
working to set up an appointment with her and her family. Miracles happen when
you follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost!
Last week I told a funny story that happened with the K’s, about when we
were standing around the trash can talking to his neighbors. This week we
stopped by their house and M K told us that after we left his neighbors just
started dragging us through the mud and tearing us apart. M K goes, "Don't
worry sisters. I set them straight. I told them that you were servants of the
Lord and it would do them well to respect you and hear you out." We were
like yes M K!! Then he told us that since they had to miss church last Sunday
they had decided to read Jesus the Christ in its place, and they were
already on chapter 11. Y'all I've been reading that book my whole mission and I
just barely started chapter 11. What the heck haha. He sounded like a lifelong
member, but he's not a member! He started bearing his testimony to us and
testifying of the power of the Holy Ghost to change the hearts of men. At the
very end he gave us permission to teach his 10 year old son and start preparing
him for baptism. It was beautiful. We had a lesson with him on Saturday
and ahh I just love that family! The progress and the growth they have made is
amazing. I'm so excited to see what's in store for them in the future.
 |
| Writing letters like |
We were on YSA splits one night, and typically YSA people are really hard to
catch so YSA visits are usually a lot of driving, a lot of knocking doors, and
not a whole lot of face to face action. However, we were able to meet a sister that
the ward council had been trying to meet for YEARS. We were just in the right
place at the right time because she had a baby barely a week ago so was
obviously at home haha. We were excited to learn that she is also married, and
the bonus is that she lives in our family ward boundaries! We transferred her
records to the family ward to be able to give her better fellowship, and were
very optimistic about the opportunity to teach her husband about the gospel!
This week L also came back into town. Yesterday
at church she was wearing the same shoes as me. :') Investigator/missionary
goals if I've ever seen them ;) haha and she goes "Sister Jacobson!! Your
blog didn't update!" Hahahaha amazing. We are so excited to have another
lesson with her this week; we've missed teaching her these past few weeks!
 |
| Salt n Pepper |
Also it's the holiday season which means ward parties out the wazoo. This
weekend we had two
 |
| Costumes on a budget |
Halloween parties. We manned a snow cone booth at one with
our ward mission leader AND a former investigator. It was amazing. We had two
hours of solid interaction with this former investigator and we became friends
with him! If we were to see him on the street then we could talk to him and it
wouldn't be weird...we are really excited to build a bridge off of our positive
interactions with him on
Saturday.
Also, Sister Utsch and I went as salt and pepper and it was a big hit. Some
people thought we were "P.S." but most everyone got our costumes.
Last night
we had dinner with a family that was all about volleyball. It was beautiful. I
don't think the conversation strayed from volleyball for longer than 3 minutes
the whole time, and I think the whole conversation sailed over Sister Utsch’s
head. I've grown accustomed to playing it cool and toning it down when it comes
to the amount I know about volleyball...but this family was matching my level
of passion and enthusiasm about the sport. It was amazing! Afterwards Sister
Utsch was like "I've never seen you more fired up about anything" and
then on district calls she told our district leader that the family we had
dinner with was actually in love with me because of our conversation at dinner
haha. They told us that every Tuesday/Thursday
some ladies in the stake who played volleyball in college get together and
play, and a lot of the time there are nonmembers there. If nonmembers go then I
can go...potentially a cool opportunity! I'm pretty excited.
Another exciting thing is the continuation of "Sister Jacobson and the Sitting
Skeletons"!!!! Look for the pics!!!
 |
| I 💓 The Book of Mormon |
This week I hit my nine month mark as a missionary! I cannot believe how
fast the time has gone and how much I have learned and changed and grown these
past nine months. I am not the same person as I was when I left on my mission.
Before my mission, I had a testimony of this church and this gospel, but being
a missionary and seeing the application of gospel principles firsthand has
caused my testimony to deepen significantly.
If you glean anything at all from my emails as a missionary let it
be this: that I KNOW with my whole heart that Jesus Christ is the Savior and
Redeemer of the world, that he suffered in Gethsemane and died on Calvary for
not only our individual sins, but for our pains and our sorrows and our
afflictions and our weaknesses and our inadequacies and our imperfections.
Everything you could possibly ever feel, Jesus Christ felt as well, so you
would never have to endure anything alone. He is my Savior and I have come to
know Him and have a personal relationship with Him on my mission. He is
everything. I love Him, and I am grateful for Him.
On that note...that’s about all I got! I love you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment